I can already tell that you don’t believe me, and I haven’t even started telling my story. You’ve probably heard it a hundred times already, as it spread throughout town, told with stifled laughter and smiles. If I am right in this assumption then it is very clearly not the story I am about to tell you. This is not a joke, and I won’t tell it to you as such. Perhaps if you see my face as I relive the memory you will recognize the sincerity in it. You’ll realize that the tremors and tears that I will subject myself to as I once again re-tell my tale is not an act, designed for emphasis or attention. This will leave the only remaining, yet for more destructive realization for you to accept, and that is that I am telling you the truth. I’ll apologize now for the impact that this realization will have on you and your life, but I will not feel guilt at it. I have warmed you time and again and ye you have persisted, until finally I have succumbed and agreed to tell the story to you now.
This was back in about mid-autumn. The leaves had long since changed t heir reds and yellows, no longer resembling a crackling fire but now were shades of a pastel sunset. The morning s were quite frigid, one would often wake to find a sugar-coating of frost spread over the little remaining grass. The sun still visited enough that the frost would be present only a moment, so the days were comfortably warm. It was parents’ weekend, so once again they were coming up to visit for the day and then would head home the next morning. My mother used to spend her summers as a child working in a port town in New York and had an enormous affinity for the water. As such we would usually go on a boat tour of Lake Champlain.
Out on the water, the wind became a biting cold rather than the nice breeze of the shore. Almost all the other families stayed inside, to fide from the wind. This was not the case for us. The wind would have to get a lot worse to overpower the view of waves hitting the cliffs of an unknown island, or the smell of the fresh air mildly influenced by the spray off the font of the boat. Admittedly I was fairly under dressed for the expedition. My mom had a coat, scarf and thick hat to cover her scar that was still sensitive to the cold after a year or so. My dad had on his coast guard hat and a slightly over sized hoodie, to conceal the weight hanging from his hip. I only had my jacket and a flannel over shirt. I wasn’t going to be cold though, if only out of spite.
For a while we just stood there, leaning on the metal railing while trying not to connect any skin to its surface. We saw various building of ornate and interacted design that were plotted at varying distances along the shore, and my mom fantasized about buying one and living closer to me. Then she’d pretend to spot Champ, the lake’s Loch Ness monster equivalent, far away from the boat. It’s almost funny how this was the more calming of her two jokes at the time.
We started to pass a farm field, with cows spread out over the area, picking at the tufts of grass, or huddling together for warmth. It was at his point hat my parents went inside the cabin. My mom wanted a tea and a chance to warm up a little, while my dad was comfortable with her wandering by herself and elected to accompany her. As they left I claimed that I would catch up with them in only a moment. To this day I don’t know why I stayed in that spot. Everything would have been so much simpler if I had just gone with them, and left what was to come with no witnesses. But I didn’t, and no amount of reflection or analysis will ever change that. In a way one could say it was fated, that there was no possibility of it not happening. This is only a theory to explain a fact. The fact is that it happened.
I suppose I’ve delayed this part of the tail as long as I could. I’m sorry for this, but after I’m trough I’m sure you’ll understand my hesitancy. As I stood there looking out into the distances reach by that green lake water, I saw an odd disturbance in the surface of the water. This was not caused by the wind in the manner of a wave, but instead had the appearance of a bubbling. At first it was quite gentle, but visible. I can only compare it to the sight of the La Bea tar pits in California, where methane gasses cause a similar bubbling effect. Just as it caught my attention there was a sudden yet silent sight of a giant silver blade piercing out of the surface. I thought of the lady in the lake catching Excalibur just as the sky-scraping blade began to curve at its joints, and I realized what I was looking at, a leviathan.
Now when I say Leviathan, I’m using the term in its original sense. This was not simply a big thing. It was not a just a big fish. It was not Ishmael’s whale. This was a true Leviathan. A serpent only God himself could kill. Its silver shine and giant plate-like scales made it seem inorganic, with no soft surface visible. I could have been a living building, if they made buildings that tall in Burlington. But the greatest proof of its life as an organism was its eyes. The pupils would expand and contract with such a ferocity, it could have focused on anything within view. Its eyes slowly scanned the shore, while its dragon head stayed motionless. This disturbing inversion of a light house then spotted the farm. There was a crack of thunder, as in a cobra the serpent caused one of the cows to vanish entirely. I realize now that there had been several dark clouds in the sky, so the creature movement could easily be mistaken for a coming storm.
Through this whole period I had remained motionless, until now as the boat had begun to turn, most likely avoid this “storm.” As my view was becoming obstructed, I could see it begin to retract back into the lake. It was a saber being pulled out of a victim after piercing through his back. Sadly, again I wish I had walked into the cabin, turned my head, or simply blinked. None of these happened. Instead, what did happen was both my eyes widening as the serpent’s head turned to the boat, and its pupils dilated into two spheres of pure black. Then the boat turned completely and my view was blocked.
The boat went back to the shore, and I said nothing of this experience to my parents. It would be too dangerous. They’d actually be concerned for my mental well being and most like cause more of a disturbance that generate any actual benefits. I had no intention of reliving the experience for a head-shrink on a weekly basis. Lord knows I’d rather just forget about it, though I know I can’t. I know I can’t forget this story, just as I know that it isn’t over yet. I can’t be certain of anything obviously, but I know. I know that the leviathan saw me that morning, but even more frightening, it knows that I saw it.